•Rank: 5/530 at public school.
•4.2 (out of 4.0) weighted GPA, 3.89 unweighted
•Involved in dance for 16 years outside of school
-National Championship title winner for solo and groups
•school dance team for 2 years
-regional champions
•Involved in class government, STEM club, school newspaper, and Interact (a club for community service)
•American Cancer Society and public library volunteer
•Lead alto saxophonist in audition only wind ensemble and jazz band for 4 years in high school
•Top 25 in nation for EuroChallenge (internationally recognized economic competition)
•Letter of recommendation from Brown precollege teacher for summer writing course
•President of the Foreign Language Honors Society for two years
•President of EuroChallenge
•In 5 honors societies including National, Music, Science, Social Studies, and Foreign Language
•Embracing Our Differences Art Competition winner 2013
•1420 on SAT (no superscore)
•32 on ACT
•White female
•AP Courses: World History, Stats, Physics B, US History, Language and Composition, Literature, BC Calc, Psych, GoPo, Chem
•College Courses: Italian
•I have no legacies. The first person in my family to go to college was my brother who goes to Juilliard.
****QUESTION: Should I report any of my AP scores? I got 4’s on all of them. Also, my school had a lot of budget cuts which resulted in me not being able to participate in a lot of clubs. Should I write that in the section that asks for any limitations you faced?
It’s Euro Challenge not EuroChallenge and it’s a national competition not international. Don’t get what you mean by Top 25 in the nation. It’s a team not individual competition with 5 teams being recognized. Did your team come in fifth place?
I would resist the temptation to embellish your ECs. You should self-report all of you APs. You are in a bunch of school activities, I wouldn’t write about having a lack of opportunities to join even more clubs. It’s depth not breadth that counts.
Same as what @Multiverse7 said- these admissions people know what they’re doing. (Well, sometimes). If our non-experienced eyes can pick up on embellishments, I think that they too will be able to see it. As long as you can demonstrate real dedication to a cause, your EC’s are good.
You’ve got the 1st gen college hook!
Your GPA seems a little low for you to be #5 in your school- is it a low-performing school? Your test scores are a little low for Brown and Vassar and Williams. I’m not very familiar with Colgate, Ct, or Hamilton, but the other ones, you have a decent shot at as long as your essays and teacher recs are good.
Depends on what APs. 4 in Physics 1&2 or Chem is okay, but a 4 in something like Calc AB or Eng. Lang might seem a little off. Up to you, ultimately.
Did you apply ED/EA somewhere? You look likely to get in at Connecticut, and you look competitive for some of the others but they could all go WL/R. Don’t try to add ECs or argue that you could have done more " if only "; dance and sax is enough with depth. Do you have a safety?
There’s no embellishment here. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the process of the Euro Challenge competition, but they do name the top 25. My team made it past the first round. This round eliminated all teams (I think there were around 600) except for 25. We had to go back and compete again. We didn’t make it past that round, therefore we got into the top 25. I did mess up on the description for Euro Challenge, but I didn’t explain it on my application; I just did that so people on here would understand. @Multiverse7 Other than that, which part looks like I embellished? I actually am curious because I don’t want colleges to think that, but I’m not going to leave off things I’ve done. And I should have explained that the thing about having school funding cuts was just to explain the fact that I was in Interact and Euro all grades but 11th. @penumbra7
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to apply ED/EA due to other circumstances. However, I do have three safe schools. I know most (if not all) of these will reject me but I figured it was worth a shot:) @Oregon2016
I’m not really sure how the performance in my school compares to others, but our ranks were based on weighted averages. The AP’s I’ve taken so far are Stats, World, US, Physics B, and Eng Lang. I got 4’s on all. I know that’s low, but I’m not sure if not reporting them raises red flags. @penumbra7
The embellishment I was talking about was calling Euro Challenge an internationally recognized competition. Also, are you saying that you made it to the round of 25 “teams”? That’s not much of an accomplishment if anything at all.
I know Euro and Fed Challenge very well having been a Semifinalist and Finalist.
4’s on AP tests are very good scores and worth reporting. Not reporting raises more of a red flag in that AOs may assume the worst since most top students choose to self-report their scores.
I think you can get away with all of these extracurriculars without sounding too embellished, as long as you emphasize an extended commitment and passion to one or two of them. Colleges, seeing too many extracurriculars reported, might assume that you’re trying to pump up your resume with fluff, because they really do want depth, not breadth. However, if you truly are passionate about these clubs, (which, YAS) I think you’ll be okay.
I’m probably mistaken on the GPA thing if you guys are probably out of 5.
The AP score thing is tricky- it could hurt you either way, but it really depends on the circumstances of your school and how well everyone else there does.
I, too, did Euro challenge (it’s like a little partay up in here), and just curious- how are you saying that you’ve been doing it for all 4 years? I know it’s only 9th and 10th grade.
Thank you for your help! My GPA was actually out of 4.
I’ve never seen so many people from EuroChallenge at once!
As a freshmen I participated in Euro by helping with research and as a sophomore I was actually on the team. My junior year the club didn’t run because of budget cuts, but this year (my senior year) it’s back! Since the advisor isn’t that involved, he had some of the former team members come back to mentor the team of underclassmen. @penumbra7
Your choices appear to be appropriate for your achievement level, though even at that most could be tough admits for similarly positioned applicants. As a guess, I’d suggest you will gain admission to ~2 to ~7 of your listed colleges, with perhaps some correspondence to a list such this:
I think you have a good chance at Hamilton, Colgate, Vassar and Conn College.
Williams and Brown are probably out.
Tufts and Wes are reaches also. Tufts wants you to show the love. Have you done so? They really care about demonstrated interest.
The 1st generation hook will really help you and may make the difference at Tufts and Wes. Have you submitted yet? Can you try to tie your ECS together more? Right now, they just look like a laundry list. You want your app to tell a story about who you are. What is your story?